In the Company of Ghosts
by Glass Shoe
Summary: Trip Tucker doesn't live here anymore, but if you ask him, he'll tell you different.
1. Chapter 1

Title: In the Company of Ghosts

Rating: T

Disclaimer: I don't own Star Trek or any of the characters. Paramount does. This story was written for entertainment only. I'm not making any money.

Summary: Trip Tucker doesn't live here anymore, but if you ask him, he'll tell you different.

Warnings: Character death, dark, odd

Spoilers: These Are the Voyages…

Notes: Once again, apologies for any mistakes. I try to do my homework before I write something, but I don't always score a hundred percent.

Also, I know that "These Are the Voyages…" was a particularly inflammatory episode for most _Enterprise_ fans, myself included. Please keep in mind that this story is just a "what if…?" Think of it as another "Twilight" or "In a Mirror Darkly". It happened, but it didn't, just like "These Are the Voyages…"

Some of you will like this and some will hate it. Either way, I completely agree with you.

Enjoy.

XXXXX

It's been five years since Trip Tucker died and the man hasn't given you a moment of peace since then.

You're the captain of the _Phoenix_, Starfleet's newest warp seven vessel. Malcolm is your first officer. Anyone who thinks he's mellowed with age just needs five minutes on a judo mat with the Brit to convince them otherwise.

Travis is at the helm. He guards that seat like a pit bull. You bet he still polishes his lieutenant's pip at night. Hell, you made him wait long enough for a promotion. Maybe you just wanted to hang onto him for as long as you can, because you couldn't hang onto Phlox or Hoshi or T'Pol.

Phlox returned to Denobula. Ten years in space with the man and you never realized how many obligations he has on his home world, personally and professionally. Let's just say that the man is prolific in everything he does. You saw a picture of his extended family once and it made you feel lonely…almost.

Hoshi heeded her true calling. She's back in Brazil in front of a class that has tripled in size since she last taught. She complains to you over a subspace channel about the overwhelming amount of students whom she has to turn away. You offer to whisk her away from the pressures of fame on your starship. That earns you a laugh. You hope she knows you're only half joking.

T'Pol heeded another kind of calling. She's on Vulcan, pregnant with her first child. You're still shaking your head over that. She was your first officer and your right hand for over thirteen years. You were more than a little bitter when she left, and though you tried not to show it, it still took everything you had not to drink yourself under the table the night that she left.

As for the rest of your bridge crew, they never set foot on _Enterprise_ before it was hung in the Smithsonian. The _Phoenix_ is almost twice as big as _Enterprise_. Bigger ship, bigger crew: one hundred and twenty of them.

Well, one hundred twenty one, not that you'd ever mention your extra crew member to Admiral Gardner.

Trip looks exactly the same as he did the day he died: still boyish at forty, blond hair and mischievous blue eyes, grin on his face like the cat that ate the canary. There are plasma burns on his chest and throat under the clean uniform he was buried in. They don't seem to bother him. You still have to pretend that they don't bother you either.

He's still handy with a joke, always ready with a quick comeback. That's created some awkward situations for you. You're still pissed at him for his running commentary during the Alpha Centauri summit, where he told you that the Benzite delegation looked like a bunch of blue catfish.

You tell him that he has a bigger mouth now that he's dead. He laughs at that, and replies that he just has a smaller audience. You can't argue with that. The very first time you took the _Phoenix_ to warp seven, Trip stood next to you on the bridge. He whistled long and low.

Nobody heard it but you.

XXXXX

It's been eleven years since Trip died.

You've made it clear to Gardner that you plan to retire in the captain's chair. You're grateful to have hung onto Malcolm for as long as you have, but he'll be ready for his own command soon enough.

Travis is a father. His son with lieutenant Childers wasn't the first baby born on a Starfleet vessel. He certainly won't be the last. When he and Carla decided to transfer to earth to raise their family, you weren't shocked. You don't begrudge him the opportunity to have what you never did. Part of the reason is that you know he'll be back. Children don't stay young forever, and the man was born to fly.

At your urging T'Pol sent you a family photo of herself and her daughter. You keep it in your quarters between the statuette of Zefram Cochran and the photo of your father. Her little girl is very cute, and still too young to know that Vulcans don't smile. T'Pol is wearing traditional Vulcan robes and a puzzled expression, as if still asking why she is having the picture taken in the first place. She's grown her hair long. You think it looks good that way.

So does Trip.

You've finally stopped reminding Trip that he isn't real, stopped wondering when he was going to show you the true meaning of Christmas. He wasn't listening to you anyway, the stubborn bastard.

Besides, you tell him, maybe it hasn't been such a bad thing having him around.

He tells you to stop. You're making him blush.

Sometimes, when you are alone, you talk to him, about life, the universe and everything. He tells you that forty seemed like a good time to go, while he still had all his hair, while his stomach was still reasonably flat, while half of his engineering staff didn't learn about _Enterprise_ in grammar school. You don't know whether to laugh or cry at his morbid assertion. For you, forty came and went some time ago.

On what would have been his fiftieth birthday you even poured him a glass of whiskey. You lost count of how many glasses you yourself drank. When you woke up the next morning there were two glasses sitting on your desk. One was empty. The other was full. You couldn't tell which was yours and which was his.

Sometimes you wonder whether or not you're losing your mind, but the older you get, the less important that seems. Most of the time you think a little insanity is what makes life worth living.

As a joke, you asked Trip once why he never brings Porthos around.

He tells you that all dogs go to heaven, and that only cantankerous engineers spend the afterlife bugging the hell out of their former commanding officers.

So you ask him why he never bothers T'Pol, then.

He asks you, what makes you think he doesn't?

XXXXX

It's been fifteen years since Trip died.

You're attending another funeral. It seems like that's all you do lately. The Romulan war isn't going well for the Federation, but Hoshi didn't die fighting. An aneurism took her in her sleep.

You stand beside your former shipmates in the warm Brazilian rain. T'Pol couldn't make the journey from Vulcan in time. She sends her regards. Not for the first time you feel frustrated that she can't show emotion over the death of a friend. The frustration passes quickly. Even though she can't express sadness the way that humans do, you know that she feels it.

Phlox is there, resplendent in white Denobulan mourning garb. You smile and shake his age-spotted hand. You haven't seen him in ten years and despite his inexhaustible energy, he looks as old as you feel. You imagine that he thinks the same thing about you.

Malcolm brought the _Intrepid _back from its mission to attend Hoshi's funeral. Age seems to agree with him. His arms are no longer as thick as they once were. His hair isn't as dark. Other than that, time seems to have honed and polished him like a fine blade. There's an economy of motion to him now, a certain finesse that wasn't there twenty years ago. He knows what to say and exactly when to say it. Words, not torpedoes, are his weapon of choice.

You find it hard to believe that Travis is almost fifty. He still looks so young, hardly a trace of gray in his hair, biceps like a MACO fresh out of boot camp. You talked to him on subspace six months ago when he told you that Starfleet gave him command of the _Dauntless_. He sounded like the twenty-five-year-old ensign that he used to be. But all the excitement was gone from his voice when he broke the news to you about Hoshi five days ago.

Hoshi's two girls and Travis's son and daughter attend the service. Brian Mayweather chases little Sylvia in a figure eight pattern amongst the rubber trees. You think that it's appropriate to have children at a funeral, to remind people that for every ending in life, there is a beginning.

You've been to a lot of funerals. It never gets any easier to say goodbye. At your elbow, Trip reminds you that there are no goodbyes, that no one is really dead as long as you remember.

Trip's still wearing his blue coveralls, a uniform style that went out with the warp five engine. He's outranked by everyone in the front row of the funeral procession. You feel a flash of impotent anger for the promising life that was cut short before its time. It fades quickly, because there's nothing there to be mad at anymore.

Trip is looking upward, smiling. The rain doesn't touch him.

After the service you think you see two figures in old Starfleet jumpsuits. They're walking away from you, borne along by the crowd of mourners. One of them is Trip. The other has long dark hair. Their heads are bent together as if sharing a secret.

When you try to catch up with them, they disappear in the rain. Later on, you can't be sure you really saw them at all.

XXXXX

It's been twenty-one years since Trip died.

Considering the turbulent course of your illustrious Starfleet career, you thought it would end with a bang, or with some angry alien zapping you into a gelatinous puddle of goo that some unlucky crewman would have to scrape off the deck. You weren't prepared for the voice that interrupted you on a quiet day in the middle of a staff meeting.

It was Trip's voice, telling you it was time to go. When the man surrendered his life to save yours, you surrendered the right to tell him 'no'. Besides, you agreed with him.

You called Admiral Asan and resigned the next day. She doesn't try to stop you, but she does wish you luck. She's been married for twelve years, and you mention how hard it is to remember not to call her Admiral Hernandez. It's just Ericka now, she corrects you. You like the sound of that.

Your first officer received a field commission. Commander Cutler was more than ready for the responsibility. She's a brilliant diplomat and a competent leader. You can't imagine that Starfleet will replace her once the _Phoenix_ returns to port.

You went home. Not to Earth. There is a saying: home is where the heart is. For the past twenty years your heart has been with her.

When you step off the transport, the dry Vulcan heat takes your breath away. She doesn't meet you at the shuttle port, but you weren't expecting her too. Besides, you brought company. You and Trip walk the five kilometers to T'Pol's ancestral home in silence. Between the two of you, you leave only one set of tracks in the dusty Vulcan soil.

Long before you reach the house, you hear a deep, rich sound like a gong. When you enter the courtyard, you see a slender young woman in a purple robe. She is ringing a large bell to signal the start of the day.

You recognize the girl from her photograph, the one you kept on your shelf for years. You've never met in person. T'Pol convinced you a long time ago that it would not be wise. It broke your heart, but you understood T'Pol's logic and you respected her choice.

A very long time ago you asked Margaret Mullen to marry you. She turned you down. She said she didn't want to become a Starfleet widow, but that is exactly what T'Pol became for you, without either of you realizing it.

T'Pol never remarried after her separation from Koss. She let it be known that the two of them still shared affection for one another. She allowed her colleagues and neighbors to believe it was Koss who attended her during her Pon Farr. Koss cared enough about T'Pol to go along with the deception. He was an honorable man, and he took her secret to his grave.

T'Pol's daughter looks and acts Vulcan. That puts an end to the question of which DNA, human or Vulcan, is more dominant. You can see your father in the way she holds herself. You see her mother in almost everything else about her.

She turns to look at you, and you realize what she must be seeing: a pale, gray-haired alien on this strange desert world. You freeze, terrified in a way you've never been before, because you know nothing about this child you fathered.

She's beautiful, Trip tells you.

Twenty years ago you thought you were betraying your best friend by falling in love with T'Pol. For twenty years you've allowed your guilt to haunt you, but the real Trip would never begrudge you your happiness. You know that now.

Suddenly you and your daughter are alone in the courtyard.

As she looks at you, a very slight smile tugs at the corners of her mouth. She inclines her head politely and tells you that her mother has been expecting you.

You ask if she knows who you are.

Yes, she replies. You are her father.

By the time T'Pol joins the two of you in the courtyard, you are holding your daughter, your future, in your arms.

XXXXX

Trip died thirty-three years ago.

Leaning against your garden wall in a patch of shade, he watches you teach your son how to catch a football. You're not sure when it happened, but the plasma burns on Trip's chest and throat are gone. He's even lost that tired, harried look he wore constantly the last few years of his life. He laughs as you fumble the ball. You regret that water polo will always be out of the question on Vulcan.

Arthritis in your knees keeps you from moving as fast as you once did, but you think that growing old is a choice. Even though you're nearly eighty, that's a choice you haven't made yet. Your children help with that.

Your marriage to T'Pol is openly recognized, though not openly sanctioned. You've outgrown the need to worry whether Starfleet or the Vulcan consulate agrees with your union.

Malcolm, Travis and Phlox all attended the ceremony twelve years ago. You even invited Shran, though the Andorian, intransigent as always, declined on the premise that he would melt in the 'absurd Vulcan heat'.

Your wedding was the last time that the remaining _Enterprise _crew was together in the same place. Phlox died the following year of simple old age. He is survived by all three of his wives, nine children, and twenty-six grandchildren, as well as an impressive body of research. The Denobulan penned twenty four medical texts during his lifetime. The name _Enterprise_ appears in almost every one.

Malcolm is an Admiral and a confirmed bachelor, though he did manage to father a child somewhere on Vega colony. He helped broker a peace accord with the Romulans despite a devastating injury that cost him his left arm. He's a legend in his own time. His life is full of duty, and doesn't allow for much contact with his progeny. You hope that will change one day, but in the meantime there is a dark-haired little girl on Vega colony that looks up at the stars at night and worships her father's shadow.

Travis is in command of the newly commissioned _Enterprise AC-106_. You joke with him that in forty-odd years all he's done is move back a few feet from where he used to sit on the bridge. He tells you that the view is a hell of a lot better, though. You think he'll remain captain until Starfleet forces him into retirement. His mission is one of peaceful exploration, and with warp eight point five at his disposal, he's visited a hundred more worlds than you ever did. You wish him smooth sailing. No one deserves it more than he does.

T'Pol is the head of the Vulcan Science Academy and a well-respected, if controversial, political figure. The Vulcan students find you fascinating, especially the younger ones. And the members of the faculty who don't approve of T'Pol's choice in a mate simply look the other way.

She's still very beautiful, your Vulcan wife. The years have rounded her edges but they have in no way diminished her. She kept her hair long, and she wears it confined in a simple tail at the base of her neck. There are a few strands of gray amongst the brown now. The lines around her mouth are deeper. Her figure is a little curvier. You think that you're to blame for that. Over the years Trip's fondness for sweets became your own.

You named your son Koss. It was the least you could do to honor the man that protected your family all those years you were away, and asked nothing for himself in return. Koss- your Koss- is a serious boy, as much like his mother as T'Lin is like you.

T'Lin, the daughter that you and T'Pol created while the two of you were on the _Phoenix_, is living on Earth now. She didn't go as part of a diplomatic envoy, and she's not living behind a wall at the Vulcan compound. No wall could ever contain her. She chose to attend Starfleet Academy. She's a brilliant engineer. Sometimes you suspect that she had help choosing her vocation.

Sometimes you see Trip standing a little ways away from T'Pol while she's preparing a meal or working late into the night on a lecture. He talks to her in a whisper, and he has a mischievous grin on his face. T'Pol doesn't look at him. She pretends she doesn't hear, but when he turns away you see her smile ever so slightly.

You know that she loved Trip deeply. She always will, but not more than she loves you.

Humans don't have a katra, not the way that Vulcans recognize it, but Trip and T'Pol shared a psychic bond for years. When Trip died, somehow a part of him stayed with her. When you and T'Pol bonded thirty years ago, she shared it with you.

It isn't really Trip, T'Pol explained, just an echo that has supplanted itself in your conscious mind, given form by your own memories. But like the man himself, you know that the situation is far more complicated than that.

For thirty years he's been the link between you and T'Pol. Out of respect for what they had, you never approached T'Pol while Trip was alive. In death, he brought the two of you together.

You think about what Trip told you years ago at Hoshi's burial, that no one really dies as long as you remember them. Trip has lived on through you. He commanded a starship, fought battles with the Romulans, and signed the Federation charter. He fathered two children and he married a beautiful woman. He lived. And he still lives.

The sun is setting when T'Pol comes out to retrieve you and your son for supper. She's wearing that red v-neck smock that you love so much. You see her there, the orange light from the setting sun on her skin, and it reminds you how lucky you are.

You won't ever agree that it was worth sacrificing his own life to save yours, but T'Pol was right, Trip would have been the first to say it was worth while.


	2. Epilogue

XXXXX

Epilogue

XXXXX

It has been thirty-six hours since Commander Tucker died, thirty-three hours since you packed the last of his belongings to be sent to his parents, and thirty hours since you paid your final respects to his remains in sickbay. You were not alone through any of it.

It was logical to assume that when Trip passed away, your bond with him would be severed. Logic and reason, however, were things that Trip stubbornly defied in life. It made sense that he would resist them in death as well.

You're on Earth, a planet just taking its first enthusiastic but unsteady steps to towards becoming a leader in the interstellar community. This is an amazing accomplishment for a species that only first developed warp drive a century ago. It's not the first time that you find yourself reflecting on how enterprising and unexpected humans can be.

The audience is waiting for Jonathan Archer to deliver his speech. Phlox has left to join his wives. The captain has finished his nervous pacing. He tells you, "You'd better get out there. You don't want to miss me screwing this thing up."

His self-depreciation is unwarranted. He will not 'screw this thing up'.

"I'm going to remain down here if you don't mind," you reply.

"You never did like crowds, did you?"

That's not the reason, but you don't tell him that.

The captain ascends the red-carpeted stairs. You stop him in his tracks with the words: "You look… very heroic."

You're not sure what his response will be, but you aren't expecting it when he pulls you into a warm embrace. You don't know how to respond to the gesture, so all you do is blink. The captain doesn't seem to mind.

He enters the arena. You listen to the applause rise up like a tide, and then die down back down. A few seconds later, Jonathan Archer's voice fills the silence.

Phlox and Archer may be gone, but you are not alone in the small waiting lounge.

Trip is seated on the edge of the gray sofa. The cushions don't sink under his weight. He's leaning forward, elbows on his knees, giving you a smile that is both triumphant and smug at the same time.

"Heroic?" you ask him, annoyed.

"You wouldn't have said it if you didn't agree with me," he points out. He suggested the compliment. You voiced it. He's made you uncomfortable on purpose and he knows it.

"You're blushing," Trip says.

"Vulcans do not blush."

"This one does. Why didn't you hug him back?"

Trip has always excelled at placing you in compromising situations, at forcing you to confront truths you would rather ignore. Death has not diminished that gift.

You didn't return the captain's gesture of affection because you thought that Trip would be offended. It wasn't the first gesture that Jonathan Archer has made in the years that you've served together, but you have never allowed yourself to think of the captain in anything other than a professional capacity. Trip was, and still is, a big part of the reason.

Trip sounds a little frustrated with you when he says, "Maybe it's time to ask yourself what you want and stop worryin' so much about me."

He told you almost the same thing ten years ago, when he advised you to follow your heart, even if it meant going against Vulcan tradition and breaking your engagement with Koss.

You want to tell him it's not as simple as that. But it was then, and it is now. Trip is dead, and he tells you that it's okay. He loves you too much to hold you back.

Thunderous applause fills the chamber. As it dies down, Jonathan Archer descends the steps into the lounge. He looks flushed, adrenaline causing his hands to shake ever so slightly. You're amazed that a man who can remain calm in life-threatening situations can still be frightened by speaking in public.

The captain looks surprised to see that you're still there. He asks what you thought of the speech. You know it by heart now, because he's rehearsed it for you so many times. You tell him that it was…moving.

There is a reception planned for after the ceremony, but the captain says he's not exactly in the mood to celebrate. You admit that you feel the same way, and for a brief moment, Trip's ghost steps between the two of you.

Soon the lounge will be filled with dignitaries, with reporters and Starfleet personnel. You only have a short time to decide how to proceed. Before the captain can make up an excuse to spend the evening in his suite checking on some trivial aspect of the decommission protocols, you ask him if he will join you for your evening meal. It would be much less formal than the reception, you tell him, and you would welcome the company.

He gives you a slightly surprised look, and you begin to think that perhaps this was a mistake, and then the captain smiles. He says he thinks he would enjoy that. You think that you would too.

As you predicted, the room is suddenly swarming with people jostling to shake the captain's hand and take his picture. They don't notice the engineer still sitting on the gray sofa, and they pass by him without a glance. Trip doesn't seem to mind. He's got eyes only for you, and he's smiling as the crowd closes in, blocking him from sight.

XXXXX

End.

Thank you for reading.

Feedback is welcome.


End file.
